White Tea Glossary
A glossary of white tea: the words used on this site for Fuding white tea, its kinds, its seasons, how it is made and kept, and how it is brewed, each with its Chinese characters, pinyin and a short definition.
Terms in English and Chinese, as Ernan White Tea (二南白茶) uses them. Where a term has more to it, the definition links on.
White tea and its kinds
White tea白茶bái chá
Tea that is picked, withered and dried, with no rolling and no firing: the least made of all teas. Because so little is done to the leaf, it keeps changing in storage for decades. Fuding, in north-east Fujian, is its home.
Silver Needle白毫银针bái háo yín zhēn
White tea made from buds alone, picked in the short window around the spring equinox: the shortest harvest and smallest yield of the year. The buds are plump, straight as needles and covered in white down.
White Peony白牡丹bái mǔ dān
White tea of one bud with one or two leaves. In the cup the green leaf cradles the silver bud, like a peony opening. Floral and fresh when young.
White Peony King牡丹王mǔ dān wáng
The top selection of White Peony: the fattest buds with their first leaves. The house flagship, the 2010 Unpolished Truth, is a White Peony King.
Gong Mei贡眉gòng méi
White tea picked a little further down the shoot than White Peony: smaller buds with more leaf. Bright and direct, and it presses well into cakes. The house’s Gong Mei are spring teas.
Shou Mei寿眉shòu méi
White tea of leaf and bud together on the stem, its leaves curled whole like eyebrows. The fullest of the four kinds, and the one most often pressed into cakes and aged.
Fuding Da Bai福鼎大白茶fú dǐng dà bái
The local tea bushes of Fuding, the “Fuding Big White,” from which most Fuding white tea is made. They put out large, plump buds thick with fine white hair.
Season and garden
Spring tea and autumn tea春茶 / 秋茶chūn chá / qiū chá
Spring teas carry grass and flower aromas; they are fresh and bright, for mornings and summer. Autumn teas are rich and full, for afternoons, and the aged ones are boiled in winter.
Pre-Qingming明前míng qián
Picked before Qingming, the festival in early April: the earliest spring leaf, caught before the rains.
Grain Rain谷雨gǔ yǔ
The solar term in late April, when spring rain is ample and the buds grow fat and soft. The Ming dynasty Record of Tea: “Qingming is too early, Lixia too late; around Grain Rain the time is right.”
White Dew白露bái lù
The solar term in early September, when the nights turn cold. White Dew tea is the autumn picking: mellow, full, with a dry, generous aroma. Snow Tea and A Flower Blooms in the Heart are White Dew teas.
Winter leaf冬片dōng piàn
Leaf picked after the winter solstice, possible only in a warm winter, so very little exists. The old leaves grow thick against the cold; the liquor is apricot-gold. The house’s winter leaf is Nurtured Reserve.
Wilderness tea荒野茶huāng yě chá
Tea from gardens abandoned to the mountain years ago and left untended. Yields are tiny, roots run deep, and the flavour carries a mineral wildness no tended row can give.
Wild tea野茶yě chá
Tea from trees that no one planted or tends, growing in the high cloud forest in diffused light. The house’s True Awakening is a wild tea.
Making and keeping
Withering萎凋wěi diāo
The step that makes white tea: fresh leaf spread thin on bamboo trays loses its water slowly in air, and turns from grassy to sweet. Nothing else is done to the leaf but drying.
Sun-withering日光萎凋rì guāng wěi diāo
Withering in sunlight and mountain wind rather than indoors. The house rule at Ernan White Tea is more than forty hours, with the trays turned and judged by hand throughout.
Sealing封仓fēng cāng
Putting finished tea away sealed to rest. The house seals its leaf for around a year before pressing, then seals the cakes again, so the tea transforms twice.
Charcoal baking炭焙tàn bèi
A light baking over charcoal given to some cakes before they are sealed away. It softens the tea toward a jujube sweetness that deepens for years.
Cake茶饼chá bǐng
Tea steamed soft and pressed into a round, flat cake, then dried and wrapped. Cakes keep well and change slowly and evenly; the name and year are written on the wrapper.
Loose leaf散茶sǎn chá
Tea kept as it was made, unpressed. It changes faster than a cake. The house keeps its Silver Needles and wilderness White Peony Kings loose.
Aged white tea老白茶lǎo bái chá
White tea kept for years after it was made. The grass and flowers of youth soften into honey, dried fruit and jujube, and the liquor deepens from pale gold toward amber.
At the table
Gaiwan盖碗gài wǎn
A lidded bowl for brewing, the house’s everyday way with white tea: short steeps, many infusions, the lid held back to pour.
Boiling煮茶zhǔ chá
Simmering tea briefly from cold water instead of steeping it. The winter method for white tea cakes three years and older; the pot comes out deep, dark and sweet.
Jizhou ware吉州窑jí zhōu yáo
Cups and bowls in the Jizhou tradition, tortoiseshell glaze over dark clay, each one different. The house has them made in small numbers for the table.
Yangxin kettle养心壶yǎng xīn hú
The house’s hammered silver kettle, named for tending the heart with tea, with a lifted handle that stays cool. Ernan (二南), born Kong Nairong, has boiled his water in silver since his years as abbot.
Chan tea禅茶chán chá
Tea as Chan practice: “Chan and tea are one taste.” In the Chan master’s world, Ernan says, tea is the finger pointing directly at the mind. It names a way of drinking, not a kind of tea.
Shidu Ernan世笃二南shì dǔ èr nán
The four characters carved over the family gate at West Kun: generation after generation, faithful to the Er’nan. The Er’nan, Zhou Nan and Shao Nan, open the Classic of Poetry; the tea house takes its name from this lintel.